Disarm You With a Smile

The Universe:
{Edward walks back over to the couch, sits down and takes Taryn’s hand, looks at her, quietly} You asked earlier what I’ve done. You meant.. to women, right?The Cosmos:
{Taryn nods, quietly} You don’t have to…The Universe:
{Edward smiles} No. I think I do, actually. Considering the extraordinarily intimate nature of our relationship, you have every right to know and ask.The Cosmos:
{Taryn nods, looks at him} I just don’t want you to be uncomfortable.The Universe:
{Edward shakes his head} I won’t be. I just didn’t want to get into it in the middle of everything going on and with the others here.The Cosmos:
{Taryn nods again and smiles} I’m listening. {locks her eyes on his}

The Universe:
{Edward smiles} I’m what they call a “switch”, but Damien likes to broaden the definition and apply it to all kinds of different situations, so he calls me a chameleon. Being a switch means I can play either dominant or submissive roles, respectively called topping or, bottoming, I guess.The Universe:
{Edward smiles, shakes his head} That sounds weird.The Universe:
{Edward laughs softly} I’m not even sure that’s a word.The Cosmos:
{Taryn quietly} Which do you prefer? {smiles} It does. And after the conversation we were having earlier…it brings all kinds of *other* things to mind.The Universe:
{Edward laughs outright} Oh, that’s awful. {smiles} *That* was a horrifying conversation. {looks at her} Would you be surprised if I said I *usually* tend towards vanilla?The Cosmos:
{Taryn shakes her head, blinks} We’re talking about pudding or ice cream now?The Universe:
{Edward smiles} It’s.. basically just straight, average sex without all the.. props, toys and delineation of roles. I’m too moody to be all dom all the time and while I’ll defer to a higher authority, I don’t really think “sub” defines me at all.

The Cosmos:
{Taryn smiles} I don’t see you as..submissive. I couldn’t if I wanted to. {looks down} But do you prefer it that way?The Universe:
{Edward shakes his head} No. I don’t prefer to be all dominant male. I have moods where I’ll dom out for a bit, but… they come and go. I’ve never been very good at gender roles. You know.. you’re a man so you’re supposed to be like Genja or Damien all.the.time or ohmygod, you’re some kind of fag or something. I admit to being a little more.. effeminate.. I guess.. than most of the other men around here with the exception of Alexei, but… I actually started doing that at a very young age to figure out girls.The Cosmos:
{Taryn nods} Which makes it easier to…switch?The Universe:
{Edward smiles} Totally. I probably know and understand women better than any man here. I even tend to get along with them better than men. But.. Damien calls me a chameleon because I’m very good at pretending to be what I’m not and that’s part of what makes it easier too.The Cosmos:
{Taryn frowns slightly} Pretending to be what you’re not? have you done that with me?The Universe:
{Edward looks at her} Men aren’t intimidated by me because I’m not your ruggedly handsome square jawed action hero. They don’t worry about their girlfriends hanging out with me because they assume I’m gay or something. They’re always *really* shocked to find out their girlfriend was fucking me the whole time. {furrows his brow} No. I don’t think I have.The Cosmos:
{Taryn smiles} Good. {quietly} I don’t want you too. {looks at him} So other guy’s girls are…common practice?The Universe:
{Edward shakes his head} Not for a very long time.The Cosmos:
{Taryn nods} What happened?The Universe:
{Edward shrugs} Nothing good’s ever come of it and it isn’t worth losing your best friend over.The Cosmos:
{Taryn blinks} You stole Damien’s girl?The Universe:
{Edward looks at her} Stealing implies that I ended up with her and I really didn’t, but.. we did get much closer than he appreciated.The Cosmos:
{Taryn quietly} I’m sorry. {frowns again} I didn’t mean to imply I didn’t think you could, {smiles} Because I totally think that.. it was more of an I didn’t think you would do that. May I ask what happened?The Universe:
{Edward shakes his head} How you meant it is exactly how I took it. {shrugs} She had some..intimacy issues and I tried helping her with them and we ended up sleeping together and Damien caught us and I ended up staked. {looks at her} It wasn’t one of my finer moments.The Cosmos:
{Taryn shudders} Oh.. Ow. *That* had to be a hard lesson learned.The Universe:
{Edward nods} It was. Extremely.The Cosmos:
{Taryn quietly} So you’ve probably…done everything?The Universe:
{Edward looks at her} Close to it, anyway. But… nothing with any real meaning.The Cosmos:
{Taryn looks at him} Nothing? You’ve never had that kind of relationship?The Universe:
{Edward looks at her, quietly} In the entirety of my existence.. I’ve only had three women who weren’t related who have said they loved me and even believed it. The *vast* majority of my relationships can be categorized as either “therapeutic” or “encounters”.The Universe:
{Edward shrugs} I’m actually.. incredibly insecure.The Cosmos:
{Taryn takes his hand, squeezes it tightly} You don’t have to be..not with me, baby.The Universe:
{Edward looks at her, quietly} How insecure I am tends to be directly proportional to how much I care what the woman I’m involved with thinks about me. And *that* is directly proportional to how nice she is.The Cosmos:
{Taryn holds his look} How do I make you feel?The Universe:
{Edward, quietly} Terrified.The Cosmos:
{Taryn blinks, searches his eyes} Why, Edward? How?The Universe:
{Edward looks at their hands, quietly} Because I’m not the most morally upstanding of citizens. I’m better than I used to be, but.. I’m a bit skewed. {takes an unnecessary breath} I have very chinky armor which you’ll find out. And probably a lot more flaws than merits.The Cosmos:
{Taryn looks at him} Baby..you’re a *vampire* you’re not supposed to be morally upstanding. {quietly} Tell me about being skewed?The Universe:
{Edward looks at her, quietly} I haven’t had the most.. ideal.. sexual development.The Cosmos:
{Taryn quietly} Edward…I’m 24 and was still a virgin. And with the exception of Saige and the few excursions I’ve taken with her.. {smiles} Tell me, please.The Universe:
{Edward nods} You’re not allowed to get upset.The Universe:
{Edward looks at her} And by that I mean.. you know.. not angry upset, but.. upset upset.The Cosmos:
{Taryn shakes her head} I’ll try not to.The Universe:
{Edward nods} All right. My mother was.. inappropriately affectionate through most of my teens. Or at least until my parents found out I was having an incestuous relationship with my much younger sister who my father was.. inappropriately affectionate towards.The Universe:
{Edward looks at her} Not even Damien knows about that.The Cosmos:
{Taryn holds his look and nods} Not entirely unlike Phoenix. {quietly} Much younger.. how much younger?The Universe:
{Edward rakes his free hand through his hair, quietly} She was 8 years younger. But.. nothing happened that shouldn’t have until she was fifteen which.. only makes it marginally better.The Cosmos:
{Taryn shakes her head, quietly} Edward.. {lays her hand on his cheek} Do you feel guilty about that?The Universe:
{Edward shakes his head} Honestly? No. I never have. I loved her more than I’ve ever loved anything. She was the center of my world from the day she was born. We only felt safe with each other and we couldn’t trust anyone but each other. And neither of us had appropriate familial boundaries.The Cosmos:
{Taryn nods} And this was how long ago?The Universe:
{Edward smiles ruefully} I think we’re going on about 100 years now since it ended.The Cosmos:
{Taryn smiles} The far distant past. {quietly} What happened to her?The Universe:
{Edward shrugs} She left me and married a man old enough to be her father. I essentially lost my mind and disowned her, sold the house and everything in it and moved away. I started studying abnormal sexuality and ended up.. like this.The Cosmos:
{Taryn softly} I won’t leave you, baby.The Universe:
{Edward looks at her, quietly} You can’t make a promise like that, Taryn.The Cosmos:
{Taryn looks at him} Edward, I can. And I am. Nothing short of death. {softly} I’m yours.The Universe:
{Edward looks at their hands} How can you?The Cosmos:
{Taryn quietly} Because I know what I want and what that means and what you are, how I feel when I’m with you and when I’m not.The Universe:
{Edward looks at her, smiles} So what’s wrong with you?The Cosmos:
{Taryn smiles} Nothing. {frowns} Well nothing I’m aware of. {quietly} Is that the worst thing you’ve got?The Universe:
{Edward shakes his head} It isn’t the worst, but it’s the one no one else knows about. And it’s the worst one I can talk about.The Cosmos:
{Taryn looks at him, very softly} Baby, if you talk about it, it takes the power out of it.The Universe:
{Edward shakes his head} The other one’s what happened with Damien. There’s more to it than I told you.The Universe:
{Edward smiles, looks at her} Are you therapizing me?The Cosmos:
{Taryn smiles and shakes her head} No.. I don’t do that.. I’m not a shrink. {holds his look} Tell me…all of it. Please?The Universe:
{Edward nods, quietly and kind of quickly} She had intimacy issues that I was trying to help her with, but I didn’t actually.. tell her that’s what I was doing. So, I used my powers to that end, using her dreams as a gateway and ended up… experimenting. The details aren’t really important, what is, however, is that ultimately, when she slept with me in the waking world it wasn’t necessarily because she wanted to and ultimately, you could *technically* label what I did as a sort of date rape and Damien had to skin her alive in some extremely dangerous ritual to undo the affects of what I did. That’s why he staked me. Because he’s an incredibly.. harsh.. teacher when the situation warrants it and it did and he decided that I should be forced to witness what therepercussions of my actions were.The Universe:
{Edward looks at her} Damien is also an incredibly effective teacher.The Cosmos:
{Taryn quietly} Would you do it again?The Universe:
{Edward shakes his head} Hell no.The Cosmos:
{Taryn still softly} Did you actually end up helping her?The Universe:
{Edward looks at her} I don’t actually know.The Cosmos:
{Taryn quietly} What happened to her ultimately?The Universe:
{Edward shrugs} She left with some elders. The last I heard, she was still with them in some kind of Amazonian type of family system. {smiles} Which in reality isn’t as… homoerotic as most men would like to believe. It’s more.. matriarchal.The Cosmos:
{Taryn nods, quietly} You learned the lesson, Damien forgave you, and he seems happy now. {looks into his eyes} Let it go, baby.The Universe:
{Edward nods} It’s not so much things that I can’t let go of so much as things I know about myself that make me not so much what I seem. And that only seems to bother me with people I want to stay.The Cosmos:
{Taryn shakes her head} That’s the darkest thing you’ve done? The worst thing? How long ago Edward.. decades half a century?The Universe:
{Edward nods} It is. Approximately 55, 60 years.The Cosmos:
{Taryn quietly} Before I was even a gleam in my parents eye. {smiles} You’re *not* that person anymore.The Universe:
{Edward looks at her, quietly} You realize that time is different for us, right? 50 years is like yesterday and it takes us about that long to change. I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m just saying… time is like that when you have forever.The Cosmos:
{Taryn nods} I do.. and I also realize that while you were staked and watching Damien, someone you care about skin someone you obviously cared about.. your mind was going a mile a minute.The Universe:
{Edward nods, quietly} I know that good people can be corrupted just by being around bad people, but I also believe the reverse is true. That bad people, if they only know good people, can be… redeemed… by their influence. I think that one of the keys to becoming who you *want* to be is surrounding yourself with people who are the kind of person you want to be yourself.The Universe:
{Edward looks at her} I’ve actually seen it happen with myself. Where my behavior and attitudes shifted depending on who I was with.The Cosmos:
{Taryn crawls into his lap} What kind of person do you want to be?The Universe:
{Edward wraps his arms around her, rests his chin on her shoulder, quietly} Someone more like Damien. More like you.The Universe:
{Edward smiles} Maybe even Alexei.The Cosmos:
{Taryn looks at him, quietly} You already are.The Universe:
{Edward looks at her, quietly} I need you to help me stay that way, then.The Universe:
{Edward frowns} Wait.. I mean.. To stay that way, I need you.The Cosmos:
{Taryn quietly} You *have* me.The Universe:
{Edward smiles, nods}The Universe:
{Edward looks at her} So.. stay in my room with me? I only like being alone when I’m punishing myself.The Cosmos:
{Taryn blinks and smiles} You want me to.. live in your room?The Universe:
{Edward nods} Yes. That’s exactly what I’m asking.The Cosmos:
{Taryn nods and smiles} Okay.The Universe:
{Edward smiles} Okay.The Cosmos:
{Taryn looks at him, smiling still} Suddenly I feel all…shy.

The Universe:
{Edward looks at her, smiles again} Fortunately, I know a cure for that.The Cosmos:
{Taryn looks at him} You do.. What’s that?The Universe:
{Edward leans in and kisses her heatedly}The Cosmos:
{Tayrn blinks and kisses him back her arms snaking around him}